Every WWE SmackDown Live Episode Ranked - From Worst To Best

4. The Great American Bash - 03/07/12

Ricardo Rodriguez Sgt Slaughter SmackDown Live
wwe.com

Three months after SmackDown's fifth live episode came its sixth, as WWE presented SuperSmackDown Live!: The Great American Bash. WWE hasn't exactly treated the Bash name with the greatest respect over the years, and this live SmackDown was another show in that vein.

It wasn't terrible, far from it. It was an American Independence Day special, and as such this meant Zack Ryder was needed to win a battle royal in the main event. It was a battle royal containing the biggest names in the company (CM Punk, John Cena, Big Show etc), but this win gave Zack the title of General Manager for the next episode of SmackDown, which was subsequently renamed 'Friday Night ZackDown'.

Elsewhere, Cody Rhodes and Dolph Ziggler qualified for the forthcoming Money in the Bank match by beating Christian and Alex Riley respectively, and the Duggan/Hunico feud ended with Hacksaw joining forces with Sgt. Slaughter and Santino Marella to defeat the future Sin Cara, Camaco and Drew McIntyre.

AJ Lee's descent into madness continued too, as a largely entertaining in-ring segment saw her kiss both Daniel Bryan and CM Punk. Why didn't they just let Bryan and Punk feud over what happens in the ring? We'll never know, but AJ Lee was on her way to becoming a huge star.

Teddy Long also held a party backstage that ended with Eve getting covered in punch, because of that miserable hoeski thing.

Contributor
Contributor

Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.